Game 9. NFL week 3. Washington Huskies 14-34 Stanford Cardinals. Foster Field.

The Mullet drove through the pleasant town of Stanford before parking on wood chip ground, in the shadows of the beautiful eucalyptus trees. It was 11am and there was hardly anyone else in the parking lot, for a 6pm game. The smell of the trees passed down onto the bus. We played a little beer pong amongst ourselves and watched some college football awaiting more tailgaters. I had my best ever game of beer pong by hitting seven out of ten of the cups. The eucalyptus was a good omen.

Indiana University has not beaten Michigan in Michigan since 1967 and they were on the verge of victory. Indiana were losing by three and were driving well, until a freak interception ensued and they lost the game. They will just have to wait another year.

We finally had some tailgaters arrive and they started to set up their grills, tables and popped open some wine. They told me they have been tailgating here for 35 years and they graduated from this school 40 years ago. As it is a “private” school many of the alumni come from a wider radius so they don’t always have such a hardcore following. Plus the team has experienced four losing seasons on the turn.

They donated some great Stanford cones to the bus, and told us to come back to check out their food in a couple of hours. One of the chaps, John told us that his son, Bryan works for the other Cardinals, the NFL team in Arizona. He told us that his son got him a ticket for the Super Bowl, and they ended up staying in the same hotel as Eli Manning and Drew Brees. Sadly we are not going to see an Arizona Cardinals game on the tour this year, but we will be in visiting Arizona State University next week.

Two days after the tailgate, John, emailed his son Bryan about my trip and the bus. I never thought to ask John what his son’s name was, but it turns out I know his son. Bryan is the chap that helped me get Arizona tickets last year. Now a year later I am out at Stanford tailgating with his father! What a small world.

I had a walk around the campus, and what a beautiful campus it is. There was little tailgating near the stadium because the surrounding area of the stadium, is taken up with beautiful greenery and a huge sports complex. The diving team were practicing their new dives, while the swimmers were training in one of the two Olympic size swimming pools. That’s right two Olympic sized swimming pools on campus!

It was hard to actually see the stadium, Foster Field from the outside, because the stands are surrounded by tall trees. Soon purple and gold balloons of the Huskies appeared behind us. A large group of Husky students wearing balloon hats came by the bus before partying in their alumni section. For every away Husky game, the Huskies put on a whole section for their own fans, including a merchandise stall, the Husky band, food, the Husky mascot and cheerleaders. In fact there was more of a Husky presence early on than a Stanford one.

My friend Justin wanted to get a Stanford t-shirt, but they were hard to find. It would have been easier for him to get a Husky t-shirt. We finally found the team store and Justin bought a t-shirt that had “The Farm” written on it. Which is the Campus nickname, as the campus used to be a farm. Then again didn’t 90% of America used to be a farm?

The neighbouring Palo Alto is famous for its tree the Coast Redwood. The image of the tree is used throughout the campus and the “Stanford tree” is the unofficial mascot of the school. This bizarre mascot is often voted the worst mascot in America. Pretty harsh!

I heard the band play in the distance and I rushed over to see them play. I was shocked to see the large tree mascot at the front of the band dancing away, next to an even more surreal image. The band leader, who is male was dressed up as Marilyn Monroe and was dancing rather frantically. I stopped to take pictures. Marilyn Monroe looked at me mid song. She stopped the whole band, blew her whistle and charged straight at me. The rest of the band followed and zipped right past me and swarmed the tailgating area under the trees, where they sporadically remained, playing another song.

I noticed many of the players had fun pin badges on their hats whilst some had their trouser legs and sleeves rolled up. They looked like a fun band of merry students. Compared with other bands I have seen over the years, this looks like a band that enjoys independent creativity.

John the tailgater had his turkey ready, along with table cloths, real cutlery, mini red cups for white and red wine, cranberry sauce, rice pilaf, and a lovely grape salad. It was high end tailgating, and the group were very happy to serve us lunch. Apparently last week we missed quite the tailgate, as John had candelabras and a butler, though I am pretty sure he was joking about the butler!

His party told me that the Stanford band have quite the quirky the reputation. They often run on the turf at away games and run around with no formation. They are also banned from the Notre Dame stadium. Some time ago the Notre Dame cheerleaders did the splits on the grass. The Stanford band then rushed onto the grass to sniff it!

I had a quick look around the fanzone, which was surprisingly not busy. They had a couple of inflatable games for the younger fans, corn hole and a football throwing game. It was then time to head into the stadium. Jay had got us free tickets. We made our way to the gate. Our tickets were scanned and came back negative. We looked down and we had actually been given tickets for the game last week against San Jose state I was so embarrassed, but the ticket office rectified the mistake quickly.

The concourse around the stadium was beautiful. I looked down to our tickets, and we had general seating, in several sections. Either between sections 121-125 or 221-225. How bizarre. The stadium was perhaps only 60% full and we had just missed the kick off.

We moved behind the goal line to sit next to the far louder Washington fans. I was at the first Husky win this season, and since then they beat the mighty USC last week and are on a roll. Stanford are not a strong team, and despite the rather muted home crowd the home team scored an early TD.

The Huskies finally got a TD back and their band, fans and cheerleaders made plenty of noise. Stanford had plenty to cheer about where running back Gerhart ran for a 60 yard TD. I’d like to say the stadium erupted after such a play, but sadly it didn’t and the atmosphere was rather non-descript. Gerhart went onto rush for 200 yards, and the team stormed the Husky defense with 321 all purpose rushing yards.

The stadium is nicely laid out, almost like a two tier, smaller version of Dolphin stadium, with its hexagonal shape. The Huskies could not get any momentum and struggled with their passing game. Their cheering squad worked harder than they did. By half time the score was 14-24 to the Stanford Cardinals. The Cardinal band stormed the field running around like headless chickens, and slowly came into formation. Marilyn Monroe guided her team to perform a fun set. Then the announcer introduced all the other Stanford sports teams. The table tennis team was not announced, maybe they cut the program, because I did noticed that the Stanford table tennis team t-shirt, was on sale in their gift shop.

Then the Stanford Rugby sevens took to the field and played six minutes. The audience looked confused, especially when there are no stoppages between tackles. The fans soon got into the game once they saw a huge hit that sent the tackle in the air and then into the turf.

The second half was more subdued, and the home team added a field goal and touchdown to their score. It was a shame there was not more of an atmosphere because this was a good win for the Cardinals. The Husky faithful continued with their hand pointing gesture, whilst on the opposite corner of the home crew had their own arm waving chant that looked great when they all did in sync.

The high end, polite tailgating, certainly reflected the rather calm and polite atmosphere in the stadium. I’m sure the Oakland Raider game tomorrow will be a slightly different affair!